Love's Bindings
by TheBetanWerecat
Summary: All things end. Some ends however are more planned than others. A small moment before that end arrives. A brief, one shot tale.


Love's Bindings

Beta'd by T'Amara

I am not JK Rowling, I make no money doing this, this is strictly fanfiction. It is also an aggrivated response to the rising number of Dumbledore bashings I'm finding. He's the Heroic Mentor! Get off his case!

For those looking for my Gundam tales, well, lets just say this is something that just popped out while the others are still baking a chapter or two.

* * *

He set the report down for perhaps the sixth time. Really, it didn't say a thing that its predecessors hadn't also said. Arabella Figg was nothing if not thorough when she documented a situation she did not like. And she really, really, really, did not like this one!

Yet none of these annual reports changed reality one whit. He sighed, wishing one more time that he'd had even the smallest amount of wiggle room in this horrible situation. But magic sometimes came in absolutes, not often fortunately, but it could not be budged when it did. He picked the parchment back up and forced himself to continue.

As he read, it once more occurred to him that unbridled love was a very dangerous thing. It knew no bounds, recognized no impediments, and ignored all doubts. Worse, when running blind or driven by fear, it took no thought for the attitudes of others, no matter how familiar it might be with them. And while love was powerful, when set against jealousy and fear, it could meet its match. In this sad case, it was a stalemate between those three forces.

Love. What an ironic thing that all this came back to the unselfish love of a young mother for her only son. How sad Lily would be if she could see how fate had twisted the sacrifice she and James had made!

Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, that was his title these days. He was respected, even outright feared by a few. He was considered one of the most powerful magic users living today and often told he was to be thought of as in the top fifty of all time, a particularly stupid idea in his own mind. Holding the Order of Merlin didn't help him with this either. Nor had all the research he'd done over the years, often under the pretext of seeking answers to curses Voldemort had left behind to gain access to the Ministry's highly guarded library of truly forbidden works.

For it wasn't _his_ power that mattered this time. It was Lily's, and possibly to some extent, James' as well. Worse, it was not a taught form of magic that was at work here. He could have probably modified the spell if it had been. No, this had been instinctual magic, something one could not teach, and blood magic to boot! Despite what young Riddle had thought, this was a far more powerful combination than anything he'd ever sought to learn. It was no accident that the child had been able to rebound his Avada Kedavra back into his face.

He eyed the parchment roll with little favor. Yes, yes, that melding of the most powerful of natural magics had saved the boy's life. But it had condemned him as well. For it was _not_ a planned spell, it could only take the form a panicked mother had forced it into without knowing or understanding what she was doing.

Love and blood, the two most dominate aspects of all human magic, did not combine kindly. They were too much opposites to have any other reaction. When they were driven together, as Lily had done in the last instants of her life, the results held unimaginable potential power, and no flexibility of how it was directed at all.

It went where the witch or wizard intended, bound what they sought to bind, and could not be undone until some specific point in the will of the caster permitted it. It bound the toddler Harry Potter to the blood of his mother. In all these fruitless years of searching, Albus Dumbledore had not found any hint that it could be shifted.

The child was trapped in that house until he came of age under Wizard Law. Only while he stayed under the roof of his only living blood relatives would the protections hold. Even weakened as they now were by Voldemort's theft of the boy's blood they remained strong enough under that one roof to keep Death Eaters, and Dementors, from setting foot on the property at all. Hogwarts was the only other place he could go with any safety, and even here, the protections would be thinner, much thinner, than his Aunt's home could offer.

But the Dursley home was a genuine hell for the child. Minerva had been right to protest that bleak night when the rest of the Wizarding world had been celebrating the 'death' of Voldemort. The worst sort of Muggles she'd called those crude people. And she had been right.

He reached over and picked up a smoothly polished pebble of flawlessly clear quartz. Nicholas had made this for him over twenty years ago. He'd often wondered how. Getting the personal ingredient must have been a trick fully as great as making the Philosopher's Stone had been!

As always, the instant his hand touched it, it darkened to a shimmering black. No, Tom Riddle was still not anywhere nearly as completely gone as most of the Wizarding world so dearly tried to believe. He snorted at the thought. As if pretending would make Tom go away! What was that so very apt Muggle phrase? Something about not seeing the five ton elephant in the room wasn't it? With a tired sigh, he put the quartz pebble back in the pile of small oddments he used to hide it. It wasn't something he thought it would be wise to have anyone else aware of. Especially since it couldn't tell anyone where Riddle was, unfortunately, just that he wasn't dead. And that was knowledge that was already being resisted tooth and claw by people with too many bitter memories and carefully buried terrors.

Well, best he get on with doing the pitiful little he could do to protect the boy from his own family then. It was particularly unfortunate that proximity to any member of his Aunt's family would automatically negate all forms of 'notice me not' spells. They were the safest ones to use around Muggles and usually the most effective.

Still, the version he'd been using since the boy was two did keep him largely safe from the rest of the Muggles around him. Hs obnoxious cousin's little gang of abusive bullies had only been able to find Harry when Dudley himself was with them. Even with the spell weakened now, they still couldn't find him on their own. The teachers at that barely competent school he had attended before coming to Hogwarts had rarely noticed the boy unless Dursley was there either. Casual strangers on the street still perceived nothing more than the presence of a person, just enough notice to avoid walking into him. Most importantly, the Death Eaters hadn't been able see him at all anywhere in Muggle-dominated territory. That too had faded somewhat but even so, a Death Eater still had to be looking right at him and actively searching to spot Harry on a public street.

It was dangerously flawed now though, as it could no longer block whatever it was the Dementors used to see by. And they were now far too aware of Harry Potter for anyone's comfort. He still had no effective answer for that. Fortunately, unless they had been directly summoned and sent, Dementors did not like to venture into Muggle areas. The lack of magics there made what they stole from those people a thin gruel for the monsters. They much preferred the far richer fare to be had from touching those of the Wizarding world.

Small bottles and little jars yielded up the necessary materials. The old scrying bowl, stained from all these years of use in this spell, stood up to the powerful magics being called into it yet one more time. Finally, he touched his wand to the surface of the bubbling liquid; it vanished. In the bowl, now completely empty of material things, a tiny vision showed him a sleeping teen. A thin and tattered fog tried to surround him. Then, suddenly, the fog was abruptly so dense it was the only thing in the bowl.

Albus smiled very slightly. What he could do, had been done. One last year of protection surrounded the boy. As he drew his vision back, he noted that once again, the spell he'd set had blended with the protections from Harry's mother. And a perfectly ordinary suburban London home somehow just seemed to slip away from all magical sight.

There were those who knew how the boy was forced to live who held him accountable for every bruise the child ever had. They spoke of him as though he manipulated the boy for personal gain. How little they knew! And they could be told no more either. For if they told Harry too much, too soon, then Tom would also hear it. And, at the moment, Tom was the more experienced and ruthless. He was also the more sure he knew all the answers as well. He must stay sure of his knowledge, stay blind to the gaps in it, or the boy would fail.

Albus studied the crooked wreck of his hand, the one he'd dared use to touch the horacrux. No, the Wizarding world could not afford that. His time was coming to an end. The boy's must go forward. So he would not speak to rebut those who saw him as a viciously manipulative old man. Silence was a better shield for Harry than words would be. And he would die, leaving the boy to his future without his last crutch.

Albus Dumbledore offered the room a startlingly cold smile. His presence had hidden what Harry could become from almost all. He rather thought there would be no few who would rejoice to hear of his death who would find themselves forced to reconsider shortly after their party ended. Harry Potter was potentially a far greater wizard than he had ever been. And once out from behind his shield, forced to complete his maturation without anyone else to fall back on, they would have to deal with him. Somehow, Albus didn't think they would.

Yes, poor Tom Riddle, that frightened, bedeviled, wildly jealous child turned horridly cruel adult, would be gone for real. Then the Wizarding world was going to have to live with Harry Potter. And Harry, triumphant hero though he would be was also very, very human. He would not make that easy for some of them. And he would never allow anyone to manipulate his life again. He could almost feel sorry for the Ministry of Magic, almost, but not quite.

Albus smiled gently. Someday, this would be Harry's office. He was sure the young man would wear it well.


End file.
